To end the summer we are going to be having some Jim Fallon style, all out, pull out all the stops, lip syncing competiion. Contestants will turn in n application video, we will pick the best ones and have 3 weeks of competition with judges and all. The winner will get The Golden Mic and $100.

This video was made my Emma, our student prgram director, and it was a hit last night in services.

We'll certainly be adding more to it in the near future: a key volunteer set it up for us, just a simple Wordpress themed site. Would love to know what you use, and who you think actually uses it as well!

A few weeks ago, we looked at 3 types of parents that you'll work with as a youth pastor. Today, we'll continue looking at strategies for dealing with each type of parent. Here are 7 strategies for working with airplane parents, those parents who circle their teens at a respectable distance, giving them an appropriate amount of autonomy.

Give them information as soon as possible. Because they give their children appropriate amounts of autonomy, airplane parents are the parents who are most likely to trust teens with their own schedule. This sometimes results in scheduling mishaps, where teens are double or triple booked. To help prevent this, airplane parents appreciate getting events onto their family calendar as early as possible so they can help their teen plan and prioritize their schedule.

Limit the frequency of your communications. Airplane parents are typically circling several of their teen's arenas at once. On any given day or week, they're not only receiving communication from you but also from their teen's school and extracurricular activities. Don't swamp their inbox with daily messages. Instead, limit your communication to once a week. To help insure that your information gets read, be consistent in when you send it to parents. When you send information the same day each week, parents know when to expect it.

Make information scannable. Airplane parents are masters of multi-tasking. Because they've given their teens appropriate autonomy, they also have time for a life of their own. This means they're exceptionally busy and on the go. So, whenever you send them information, make sure it's scannable. Use headings and different size fonts to create headlines with the most important information. Save details for a smaller font underneath those headlines. This allows busy parents to skim an e-mail, quickly get an accurate sense of what's happening in your ministry, and only read the details regarding the information that pertains directly to their family.

Equip them with questions. Since airplane parents care deeply about the lives of their teens, they actively and regularly engage them in conversation. Build upon this by getting families talking about faith. Through e-mail or social media, give parents 2-3 questions each week that they can ask their teen in order to help them continue the conversation you start in your youth ministry at home.

Resource them. Airplane parents are too busy to attend parenting programs, classes, or seminars offered by the church; They're already attending the ones offered by the school. So partner with schools to sponsor those programs. Additionally, find ways to resource parents in other ways. For example, establish a library filled with resources on parenting and faith formation that parents can check out and read whenever their schedule allows.

Host events that connect them with their teens. While airplane parents don't generally have time to attend parenting programs offered by your church, they will often prioritize events that connect them with their teens in healthy ways. Once a year, invite them to attend one of your youth ministry's gatherings. Specifically gear the night for families. This will help parents and teens connect over their faith while also giving parents a glimpse of your youth ministry. Additionally, hold events surrounding milestones like graduation that give families the space to say things that might otherwise get left unsaid due to how hectic their schedule is.

Invite them to serve. Since airplane parents give their teens appropriate autonomy, these are the best parents to have serving in your youth ministry. Still, check with their teen before asking them to serve. (This shows teens that you've got their back.) If a teen is OK with their parent being involved, invite them to serve on mission trips, as a small group leader (preferably not the one their teen is in), or during special events.

Investing in parents is always worthwhile. This is especially true of airplane parents. When you take the time to invest in them, they can become your ministry's biggest supporters.

So what I'm about to share with you is something I don't like to admit. I know we all go through it at times, if we admit it or not, but we know it happens and we know we at least think it. When I first started writing for DYM I told myself I wold be open, honest and transparent in hopes it could help another youth worker who might be going through the same thing. In all honesty, I don't write for anyone. I write because it helps me process out what's in my head and if it helps other people, awesome... I love it.

But I had a pity party last night. You know what I'm talking about. It's the thoughts of, "Wow, I'm working my butt off and this is how many kids showed up?" Or, "God, I'm being faithful, trying to keep going and keep a positive attitude but this is what I get? How am I supposed to build something, build a program, build small groups, build a camp culture...". I was at an event and thoughts came rushing to my head and it wouldn't stop.

Ever had some of those thoughts? I'm sure you have. As we were in the middle of the event 3 points came to my mind, which I'm sure it was God speaking to me, challenging me, to get out of this mindset I was in. I thought I would share them with you:

The kids there are the ones who are supposed to be there: Yes, not as many students as I had planned showed up, but some students who I thought would never show up to anything (you know which ones I'm talking about, "those kids", the "why are you even here, you don't pay attention" kids) showed up. I got to have some amazing conversations with them and get to know a little of their back story. If more students showed up, I know it would be crazier and I would have not have gotten the time I did with them and we began to develop a deeper relationship (They are now on my dodge ball team for the tournament we are having Wednesday).

Be faithful with what I give you: I know we hear this a lot, but do you really believe it? I have been reading through Joshua and man, there is a ton of great leadership stuff in their. One of the things I wrote down that very morning of the event was, "Joshua was faithful in all the little things God told him to so it came to the major moves, he was ready." I felt like this was God saying to me, "Do you not listen to anything I am speaking to you?" I was convicted. We all want to build our students, program and effectiveness, it's natural. We want to see things grow and we need to continue to be faithful to our calling.

You build with what you have, not what you wish you had: This thought got me good. Just like anything, you only can build with what you physically have in front of you, not with things you wish you had. Same thing goes for student ministry. You build relationships with the students that show up, you build the program off the budget you have, the events with the resources provided etc. I always get into the mindset of, "If I had this, I would be set. Or if I had more students, then I can do this" and I love to dream and think how things could be, but we can't get into the trap of wishing how things could/should be and miss what is there now and build from it. Build with what you have, stay faithful, and every time in Scripture, God moves in ways we never would have expected. Same thing in our ministries. Build up from what you have and watch God move.

There is no perfect service order. But, I do believe that the perfect order does exist, but it is a case-by-case basis. Sure there are similarities in the order in which our ministry does things, but we like to see every program like it is its own monster. We first write out every element that we want to include in the service and then we put it together. Our average service contains these elements: a message, a funny video, an announcement video, an opening song, 1-minute meet and greet, worship songs, a game, and a welcome/announcements.

This is the order that we would most likely put it in:

Opening Song (cover of a popular song or song that relates to the message)

That is our basic order or service. When putting our order together we always keep a few things in mind:

TransitionsYou always want to try to avoid any awkwardness during your services. Some of the most uncomfortable moments are when you are getting to the next element, like switching from band to announcements or announcements to game. We use program elements to serve as natural transitions. For example, we use the videos as time to switch people and sets on and off stage, same for the Meet and Greet. Bad transitions also happen when you make a sudden change in energy. Try to avoid going from a high energy moment right into a serious one. Ease it in.

TimingIs it too long? Too short? Always plan out roughly how long your service will be. We are usually generous with our estimations because things usually take up more time than we originally thought. But stay somewhat true to your timetable. You never want your service to drag, so remind the people involved to keep it interesting but tight.

RisksEvery innovative idea started with a risk. If we aren’t taking programming risks, then we we’ve settled. If you do the same order every time, your students will get bored and you will too. If you aren’t inspired by your program, they won’t be either.

Another episode of the Download Youth MInistry Podcast. Enjoy the show - and please be sure to visit and thank our sponsors Orange, Leadertreks, YM360 & Azusa Pacific University. Just enough youth ministry so you don't feel guilty for listening!

Doug Fields is a 30+ year youth ministry veteran who is the Author of 50+ books, Founder of Simply Youth Ministry, Speaker, Pastor, Executive Director of the HomeWord Center for Youth & Family at Azusa Pacific University, and a Partner in DYM.

Rachel Blom

Rachel Blom is from The Netherlands originally and has youth ministry experience in several countries, both as a volunteer and on staff.

Justin Knowles

Justin Knowles is the Lead Next Gen. Pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley in San Dimas, CA. He oversees Jr. High, High School and College ministries at the church.

Colton Harker

Colton Harker serves college-age students at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. He loves Jesus, people, life change, and Netflix.

Christopher Wesley

Blogging serving at a Catholic Church. Chris Wesley has been in youth ministry for over 9 years as the Director of Student Ministry at Church of the Nativity in Maryland.

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The DYM Story

It all started with an idea over a weekend at a youth conference - 10 hours later the store was up and running and Tweets flying. Doug Fields, Matt McGill & Josh Griffin are the brains (and considerable girth) behind this download-only youth ministry store...

Want to get published?

Let us take a look at one of your resources today! We're throwing away the old model of 2-3 voices that create all of the resources in the youth ministry hemisphere and giving ANYONE a chance? Got what it takes? [send us your resource]